Tired excuses?

[jjakq27]

Did anyone see the article on bengals.com today? It covers many of the topics and ideas we have been kicking around here regarding the concept of the quick start.

http://www.bengals.com/press/news.asp?iCur...=0&news_id=2814

Bid for quick start starts Monday

3/29/2005 - 4:25 p.m.

BY GEOFF HOBSON

Chip Morton, the Bengals strength coach, has been on the ground floor of the NFL’s most effective rehab project of the last two seasons.

His bird’s-eye view has captured head coach Marvin Lewis’s vision and management’s resolve and dollars in an organizational blueprint that has drawn praise from NFL executives and national media this offseason. And, there is no question what the charge is when the club opens its offseason conditioning program this Monday.

“Marvin made it clear the day after last season when he talked to the coaching staff,” Morton said. “Everything we do in the next nine months is with the goal of getting off to a fast start in September. His jaw is set.”

While Lewis talks of cutting short training camp by a week at Georgetown College and scheduling less practice time as well as the number of workouts and two-a-days, Morton, along with assistant Ray Oliver, is set on marrying the intensity of his conditioning program to the long haul.

“How we start the season is going to be dictated more by what we do in training camp rather than what we do in the next three months,” Morton said. “As far as what we’re doing, I just have to keep an eye on keeping the work ethic where it’s been, but making sure we’re precise in what we do. Not grinding and creating wear and tear. I think many times we get after it so hard to get what we want done, we have to keep that in mind.”

Wanted: Fast start

Lewis is very much aware of his combined 5-9 record in September and October during his first two seasons here, and his 11-7 record in November, December and January. The 1-4 start in 2003 and the 2-5 start in 2004 still gnaw at him because they cost both 8-8 teams a postseason berth. He spoke about it again at last week’s league meeting in Hawaii.

"Training camp will be different, number one. We're going to get to the season fresher and more excited about it. I want to make sure we're better rested,” Lewis told reporters gathered at a media breakfast. “We got beat up last year on our offensive line and it really hurt us as far as playing games early in the season. We had different guys in there all the time, and it took until they came back to move the ball consistently.

“More rest in between, shorter practice, the amount of practices, we're going to shorten camp, break before the second (preseason game),” Lewis said of how he plans to get fresher. “I think by coming home a little earlier we'll get an opportunity to get in a routine, where you're having good weight training, good meetings, have lunch, go out and have a good practice, and spend time with the young players in the evening and let the other guys go and come back and do it all over again.”

The quick start has dominated Morton’s plans rather than the league-high 18 players that went on season ending reserve lists from the start of last training camp until the end of the season. Most of the injuries looked to be non-training issues, such as broken bones and torn tendons (“there’s no real trend”), but Morton has reviewed his two years here and made adjustments with the slow starts in mind.

For instance, he has re-distributed the offseason workload, changed the flexibility program, and is re-emphasizing the importance of knee bending and recovery time after workouts and practices.

Morton presided over the popular once-a-week yoga session last year, but now he has moved on to a physical therapy phase.

“This year we’re making the transition from yoga to more sports-specific stretching,” Morton said. “Yoga was good because it concentrated our time; now we’ve adjusted it more to the specific needs of our guys. It’s a little more science. A little more sports medicine, a little more precise with the focus. Now the stretches will be (led by) a physical therapist that has experience with sports injuries and rehab.”

Morton always demands a lot of core work (from the knees to the chest), and while the Bengals had few core injuries last season, the most notorious belonged to running back Chris Perry’s deep abdominal pulls that have been classified as sports hernias and reportedly sidelined him until June 1.

But the dates of the April draft, other injuries, and a holdout prevented Perry from getting the full dose of the core program.

“He still has to go through rehab with our trainers,” Morton said. “But we’re real anxious to get our hands on him and I imagine we’ll spend a great deal of time with him once we get him.”

Raising the bar

When Lewis and Morton arrived in 2003, they needed the offseason program to be intense and demanding because it was the first place the players got the message that the bar would be raised and that Lewis would keep insisting on raising the standards. They are keeping the bar and the intensity high, but want to keep it in the bigger picture of a fresh September and October.

Morton has tweaked the daily schedule. Mondays are for hips and legs, Tuesdays are for running, Wednesdays for pressing and pushing muscles, Thursdays for pulling muscles, running, and extra leg work.

“We’ve re-structured it so the work is more evenly distributed on Wednesdays and Thursdays,” Morton said. “Our guys go at it hard, and now we’re going to back off on Mondays, that first day back when we start the week.”

But Morton reiterates that it will be from July 29-Aug. 16 (tentative dates of training camp) when the Bengals’ fate in the early season is going to be decided. In trying to craft his plan of attack, Morton reviewed his training camp regimen while with the Ravens from 1999-2001.

Baltimore started 2-2 in ’99, 5-1 in its Super Bowl run of ’00, and 3-1 in the playoff season of ’01. In Morton’s last two seasons in Baltimore (and Lewis’s), the Ravens were 9-7 in September and October.

“We always look at other programs, new technology, and if you’ve been successful someplace, look at that, too,” Morton said. “I looked back in my area at what we did in Baltimore and I asked, ‘Have I moved away from that?’

“It was mainly scheduling. What I can control is how I have the players lift; how we train the legs. The leg training we did there at the time was not as structured as what we’ve done here. The strength programs are pretty similar in principle, so Marvin and I have just talked about scheduling.”

Believe that Lewis is looking for every edge. Certainly, other teams see it.

“Marvin has given them credibility,” said one AFC general manager at last month’s NFL scouting combine. “He’s given them a direction and passion.”

But he’s also had some help. The estimable Len Pasquarelli of ESPN.com has noted at various junctures during the past two offseasons how Bengals president Mike Brown has given Lewis “pretty much whatever he wants.”

What has been described as a modern 21st century style of management simply seems to be a marriage of Lewis’s focus and plan with Brown’s resources and desire to win.

“The Bengals always got a bad rap for not spending to improve the team,” Pasquarelli said. “But if you look hard at the numbers, that was never really the case. That said, Marvin has obviously brought stability and players no longer view Cincinnati as the NFL hinterlands.”

Making $trides

Morton has seen the machinery in operation. Once Brown saw Morton’s reasoning for the overhaul of a three-year-old weight room, he signed off on the $250,000 budget in 2003. When Morton made a major purchase this offseason for a leg press machine that is equipped with a computer, Bengals executive vice president Kati Blackburn approved when she sat in on the presentation to Morton, Oliver and the training staff.

It wasn’t $250,000, but Morton says, “It was a percentage of that. It’s a significant piece.

“Each player has an individual log-in for rehab and training programs. A few teams have it. It’s a new technology. The Browns want to win. They’ve been extremely supportive and given me everything I’ve asked for. As long as I’ve told them why and what we’ll do with it, they’ve been all for it and given us whatever we’ve needed. You put that kind of support with Marvin’s coaching, and you can see it in the players that they think there is something special happening here.”

Not only was Cincinnati once considered NFL Siberia, but the majority of players who were already here never worked out at the facility. On Monday, Morton expects between 30 and 40 players.

“With more and more guys signing contracts (under Lewis), more guys are going to be here,” Morton said. “Marvin and the Browns have been behind this program of getting guys here and it’s a big reason for it being successful. I like coaching for Marvin and I think the players like playing for him, and that’s a reason why guys are staying.”

But Morton also knows no one will be happy if the Bengals get into November and aren’t in the playoff chase.

“We know,” Morton said, “because we’ve been hearing about it since the last season ended.”

[HairOnFire]

Did anyone see the article on bengals.com today? It covers many of the topics and ideas we have been kicking around here regarding the concept of the quick start.

Yeah, there wasn't much in the article we hadn't kicked around. Marvin DID back up Joisey's point about trying to avoid injuries, but only a line or two later the article mentions that very few of last seasons injuries could be linked to the conditioning program. All in all, I'd say it was mostly a rehash of the player fatique rant with a slight flexibility tweak.

I'm tempted to say more, but when you get right down to it...who wants to risk ticking off BengalsOwn?